The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1887-02-03
MEASURING TIME.
New Year Sermon by Rev. T. De
Witt Talmage, D. D.
The Unwisdom of Estimating Ones Life
ON Earth by Mere Worldly Gratifica-
ton The Christian Way of Count
ing Time-A Contrast.


ton The Christian Way of Count
ing Time-A Contrast.
BROOKLYN, Jan. 2.-Mr. Talmage chose
for his text to-day a part of the eighth
verse of the forty-seventh chapter of Gene
sis: "How old art thou?" The sermon
was as follows:
The Egyptian capital was the focus of
the worlds wealth. In ships and barges
there had been brought to it from India
frankincense, and cinnamon, and ivory,
and diamonds; from the north marble and
iron; from Syria, purple and silk; from
Greece, some of the finest horses of the
world, and some of the most brilliant char
lots, and from all the earth that which
could best please the eye, and charm the
ear, and crafty the taste. There were
temples afiame with red sandstone, entered
by gateways that were guarded by pillars
bewildering with hieroglyphics, and wound
with brazen serpents, and adorned with
winged creatures-their eyes, and beaks,
and pinions glittering with precious stones.
There were marble columns blooming into
white flower beds; there were stone pill
lars, at the top bursting into the shape of
the lotus when in full bloom.
Along the avenues, lined with sphinx,
and fame, and obellsk, there were princes
who came in gorgeously upholstered palan-
quin, carried by servants in scarlet, or else
where drawn by vehicles, the snow-white
horses, golden bitted and six abreast, dash
ing at full run. There were fountains from
stone wreathed vases climbing the ladders
of the light. You would hear bolt shove
AID a door of brass would open like a flash
of the sun. The surrounding gardens were
saturated with odors that mounted the
terrace and dripped from the arbors, and
burned their incense in the Egyptian noon.
On floors of mosaic the glories of Pha-
roah were spelled out in letters of porphy-
ry, and beryl and flame. There were or
naments twisted from the wood of tama-
risk. embossed with silver, breaking into
foam. There were footstools made out of a
single precious stone. There were beds
fashioned out of crouched lion in bronze.
There were chairs spotted with the sleek
hides of leopards. There were sofas footed
with the claws of wild beasts and armed
with the beaks of birds. AS you stand on
the level beach of the sea ON a summer day
and lock either way there are miles of
breakers, white with the ocean foam, dash
ing shoreward; so it seemed as if the sea of
the worlds pomp and wealth in the Egyp-
tian capital for miles and miles flung itself
up into white breakers of marble temple,
mausoleum and obelisk.
1t was to this capital and the palace of
Pharoah that Jacob, the plain shepherd,
came to meet his son Joseph, who had be-
come Prime Minister in the royal apart
ment. Pharaoh and Jacob meet, dignity
and rusticity, the gracefulness of the court
and the Main nf tho fold
King, wanting to make the old country
man at ease, and seeing how white his
beard is and how feeble his step, looks IA
military into his face and says to the aged
man: "How old art thous"
Night before last the gate of eternity
opened to let in, amid the great throng of
departed centuries, the soul of the dying
year. Under the twelfth stroke of the
brazen hammer Of the city clock the
patriarch fell dead, and the stars of the
night were the funeral torches. 1t is most
fortunate that on this road of life there are
30 many milestones, on which we can read
just how fast we are going toward the
journeys end. l feel that it is not an in
appropriate question that / ask to-day
when l look into your faces and say, as
Pharoah did to Jacob, the patriarch: s'How
old art thou?''
People who are truthful on every other
subject lie about their ages, 80 that l do
not solicit from you any literal response to
the question have asked. would put no
one under temptation; but l simply want
this morning to see by what rod it is we
are measuring our earthly existence.
There is right way and wrong way of
measuring door, or wall, or an arch, or
a tower; and so there is right way and a
wrong way of measuring our earthly ex-
tstence. 1t is with reference to this higher
meaning that l confront you, this morning,
with the stupendous question of the text,
and ask: How old art thou:n
There are many who estimate their life
by mere worldly qualification. When LORD
Dundas was wished happy New Year,
he said: ut will have to be happier year
than the past, for hadn't one happy mo-
ment in all the twelve months that have
gone" But that has not been the experience
OF most OF us; we have found that, though
the world is blasted with sin, it is a very
bright and beautiful place to reside in;
we have had joys innumerable. There is
no hostility between the Gospel and the
merriments and the festivities of life.
do not think that we fully enough ap-
preciate the worldly pleasures God gives
US. When You recount your enjoyments,
you do not go far enough back Why do
You not go back to the time when YOU were
an infant in your mothers arms, looking
up into the heaven of her smile-to those
days when you filled the house with the
uproar OF boisterous merriment-when Won
shouted as you pitched the ball on the play
ground-when, on the cold, sharp winter
night, muffied up, on skates you shot out
over the resounding ice of the ponda Have
you forgotten all those good days that the
Lord gave youa Were you never boys
Were you never girl! Between those
times and this, how many mercies, how
many kindnesses the Lord has bestowed
upon you.
II there is any one who has right to the
enJoyments Of the world it is the Christian,
Tor God has given him lease to every
thing In the promise: ''All are yours
But have to tell you that man who esti-
mates his life on earth by mere worldly
gratification is most unwise man. Our
ME is not to be game of chess; it is not
dance in lighted hall, to quick music; it is
not the froth OF an ale pitcher; it is not the
settings of wine cup; it is not a banquet
with lntoxication and registering. It is the
nrst step on ladder that mounts into the
skies, or the first step on road that
plunges into horrible abyss. So that in